Do You Know the Major Branches of Chemistry?

Did you know that there are five major branches of chemistry? Do you know what they are?

The five major branches of chemistry include analytical chemistry, biochemistry, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry. I’ll give a super quick briefing (hopefully non-boring) of each of the branches:

Analytical chemistry is basically what it sounds like; analyzing chemistry. It’s using methods to measure something about a chemical.

Biochemistry is studying the reactions that go on inside of a living organism.

Inorganic chemistry is the study of chemicals that contain elements other than carbon… Kind of. Okay, so some may contain carbon. Basically it’s the study of chemicals that contain anything other than a carbon-hydrogen (hydrocarbon) bond.

Organic chemistry is the study of chemicals that contain carbon-hydrogen bonds and molecules found in living organisms that contain carbon. It’s an area of chemistry that contains a ton of long chemical names, unavoidable memorization and likely a failing grade on an exam/quiz or two.

Physical chemistry is an area of chemistry that focuses on how -and why- chemical reactions occur. I like to think of it as the more philosophical of the chemistry areas. There is a great deal of statistics found in this area of chemistry along with a great deal of other areas of mathematics that many computer scientists find interesting. An example of something a physical chemist may study is the rate at which a reaction occurs and the probability it will occur at a given time.

Hope this helps explain the five main areas of chemistry! Let us know if you know of any other areas of chemistry that we didn’t mention.